


Comfort

by PBWritesStuff



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 19:06:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBWritesStuff/pseuds/PBWritesStuff
Summary: When Ozymandias stumbles into his apartment after a night out, he's awfully surprised to see Rorshach there. While Walter had been told he'd be welcome anytime, he wasn't expecting to stop in while Adrian was... Like this.(In which Ror uses his first aid skills to be spiritual support for a flamboyant heathen, as odd as that sounds.)





	Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Hurt/comfort, aftercare. As much as I love beating the shit out of Adrian, I also like patching him up again. Don't worry if you don't understand the Langwidere reference. Not many do, I imagine. There's very slight, blink-or-you'll-miss-it OzyCom, and if you want to view it that way, it could be seen as a sequel to Topping From The Bottom. Platonic or shippy is up to the readers.

When Adrian stumbled into his apartment, he didn't expect to find a guest there.  
  
"Don't you normally stay with Dreiberg on nights like these?" Veidt asked of the shadow in his kitchen, who was bent over a can of something, observing him silently. He could make out no features in the dark, but he knew it was Rorschach. Who else would sneak into his kitchen and steal his canned foods? (Although technically it wasn't  _stealing_ , as he'd been invited, after all.)  
  
"Hurm. Specter was there. Assume Daniel wanted  _privacy_  for his carnal indulgence."  
  
Adrian nearly sputtered. It was such a  _Walter_  answer that it amused him immensely to hear it explained.  
  
"Yes, I suppose he would, wouldn't he?" Veidt laughed clearly now, not in a mocking way, but the laugh of a friend who was amused. It was one of the reasons Rorshach didn't mind stopping by some nights. Ozymandias almost always seemed genuinely happy to see him.  
  
"Looking like shit, Veidt." Walter noted, seeing the damage on his friend's face in the backlight of the kitchen doorway. It was dark in here, but his eyes had adjusted hours ago. He'd never seen Adrian look this beat up. Setting aside his dinner (mixed beans today. Ozymandias always had the good kind at his apartment, with little bits of ham and onion), he turned on a dull lamp over the stove that wouldn't hurt their eyes, but still gave him the light to catalogue his friend's wounds.  
  
Walter traced his gloved fingers over a bloody lip, and the dark bruise that blossomed over a cheekbone. Adrian let himself be handled. It wasn't often that Rorshach showed his concern in a physical way, and Ozymandias wanted to see where this was going, curious man that he was. Walter worked his way down the bruised column of a pale throat, and ran his fingers over a clear bite with blood still beading along the edges.  
  
"Mm. Isn't a battle wound, is it, Veidt?" The masked vigilante hummed in question.  
  
"Ever the observant one, aren't you? You have my full permission to be disgusted with me. I entirely understand." Ozymandias replied, almost convincing himself that it was true. Soon, those gentle hands would pull away from him in contempt, and he would be left alone in this fragile state.  
  
"Hurm. Self-medication via dopamine and endorphin release."  
  
Oh, he was such a clever one, wasn't he?  
  
"You don't need to make excuses for me, Walter. I'm simply a deviant." Adrian posited, mostly just to see Rorshach's reaction. It was so difficult to hide the smirk that fought to show on his face at teasing Walter.  
  
"Mm. All deviation derives from a source. I had to learn to accept that with Daniel  _ages_  ago."  
  
And with that, he left to go somewhere (was he finally fed up with Ozymandias' perversion and self pity?), but returned soon with a wash cloth, in which he wrapped ice from the freezer. He gently held the cold compress to the man's face.  
  
"How did you know where my linen closet was?"  
  
"All rich people's houses are the same."  
  
Oh, so his towel closet was in the same place as Dreiberg's then? Adrian closed his eyes and leaned into the cool touch of the ice seeping through the towel and onto his aching face.  
  
"No good to wallow in imagination, Veidt." Rorshach commented, leaving Adrian with the ice as he went to get something else.  
  
While he knew it was true  _objectively_  (last time he did this, he'd made the mistake of prologing his self-pity, and at work the next day, he was a rolling ball of human misery). But when he thought about the energy it would take to clean himself off (patch up his wounds, take his mind off of his shame), it became much more appealing to simply go to bed, and run his fingers over the catalogue of his indiscretions, wallowing in pain and self-pity until he found the strength to close his eyes and sleep.  
  
Wasn't he  _lucky_  that Walter was here to help?  
  
Said vigilante returned with another cloth and a bowl of steaming water. Dipping a corner into the steam, he brought it to Adrian's neck, cleaning the particularly rough bite with a gentle hand as Veidt flinched minutely at the too-warm water. He knew it had to be hot to be an effective sterilizer for his wounds, but that didn't mean it didn't sting.  
  
"You should see the other guy." Adrian  offered in an attempt to make a joke, and then paled a bit, realizing what he'd said.  
  
The other  _guy_.  
  
He never made mistakes like that when he was fully sober, and not rolling on an adrenaline high after sex. To his great surprise, Rorschach made a muttering sound under his mask, and something that sounded like "...knew it." Before pretending Adrian's little slip of the tongue had never happened.  
  
"Shirt, off." Walter ordered next, and Veidt hesitated to remove it. His torso was always the worst - no marks that could be seen above his high-collared shirts, still in an easy to reach place where he could worry them as each wound healed instead of leaving it all alone like any sane person would.  
  
Slowly, reluctantly, Adrian removed his shirt, before tossing it aside and looking away, pointedly avoiding Rorshach's eyes (or where his eyes would be, if he wasn't constantly wearing that mask). He clamped his hands together under the table to hide their trembling, and waited for Walter to reveal his judgement. Instead of speaking, the masked crimefighter merely grasped the other man's hands, and forced them apart, placing them flat on his thighs.  
  
"Undue tension will cause muscle strain." Rorshach said, in way of explanation.  
  
He didn't say another word as he ran the warm cloth over each new cut, every bite and hickey, all of the scratches and scrapes and the signs that Adrian was  _not_   _entirely alright_. The marks that read like a diary of poor decisions, and guilt, and desperation.  
  
"You're being much less judgmental than I expected." Veidt commented brusquely, still pointedly avoiding Walter's mask.  
  
"Hurm. You are being more open than usual. People  _do_  leave their set patterns, when necessary."  
  
"And what necessitated  _this_  change in the pattern?" Adrian asked, running his tongue over the blood on his bottom lip. Rorschach was silent, thinking about it.  
  
 _Misguided sympathy, I'm sure._ Ozymandias thought with a tinge of bitterness.  
  
"Mm. Enjoy the company." Walter shrugged. "Good food, too."  
  
"So you wanted to repay me for my fancy canned beans then?" Adrian laughed, not his contemptuous smartest-man-alive laugh, or the bitter chuckle he'd shown earlier. It was clear and joyous.  
  
"Beans. And kindness." Another shrug. "Sometimes I feel Daniel merely tolerates me. You seem to  _enjoy_  my presence, if only as a sociology experiment."  
  
"Don't take it personally. Everyone's my sociology experiment." Veidt smirked, back into his distinguished CEO persona, one of the many masks he wore, cycling them out, like Langwidere and her many heads. He traded them all out at will and whimsy, a new Ozymandias for every occasion.  
  
"Hurm. Some more than others." Rorshach noted as he pressed (deliberately?) too hard on a burn that was  _just a bit_  too big in circumference to be a cigarette, and Adrian barely suppressed the shudder that mingled with flushed cheeks and a thrilling rush of adrenaline.  
  
"Some are more interesting studies." A smirk. "Laurie and Dan are too well adjusted and mature to make interesting observations on."  
  
"Dr. Manhattan isn't?"  
  
"He's a god among men. That alone deserves study." Adrian replied.  
  
"Hurm. And me?" Rorshach asked, quietly, almost  _shyly_.  
  
"I never share my observations with the observed." An indulgent smile. "To do so would ruin the experiment. And we don't want that, do we?"  
  
No more sneaking into Ozymandias' kitchen late at night. No more of this quiet intimacy and shared secrets underneath cryptic exchange of banter.  
  
"No. I don't." Walter replied, putting the icepack in Adrian's hand, and guiding it back to his face.  
  
"You ought to try it sometime, Walter." Veidt whispered, eyes half-lidded and dark.  
  
"Mm?" Rorschach asked, as if he didn't know what his friend was talking about.  
  
"Surrender." Adrian breathed, and  _knew_  he didn't imagine the sudden tension in Walter's hands, the tight plane of his shoulders.  
  
"Hurm. No." Rorshach bit out, turning away to pull a first aid kit out of the kitchen cabinet. Veidt had left it there for him once, when he was tired, and too beaten up to make it back home. The new distraction could allow him to pretend he hadn't hesitated. That he was still set firmly in his beliefs.  
  
"If you had to choose between surrender or death, would you still prefer death?" Adrian asked, and Rorshach tensed again, hoping he'd just  _let it go_. A spread of bacitracin over the burn, cover it with an  adhesive pad. The space of two more bandages passed before he answered.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Even if you would be missed?" Veidt pressed, and Rorshach stopped altogether, ignoring the obvious implication that  _Adrian would miss him_ , before jerkily nodding.  
  
"Yes. Always yes." Walter bit out, and stepped back. Adrian belatedly realized that he was done. Every large wound was covered, and the smaller ones were cleaned. There was no more reason for Rorschach to touch him anyone.  
  
"I would  _always_  rather you be alive and ethically compromised, than dead and riding your moral high horse." Veidt murmured, and it was Walter's turn to look away.  
  
"Why?" He finally asked, and Adrian imagined he'd narrowed his eyes behind the mask.  
  
"You're something of a friend. I can't trust many people to be honest with a multi-millionarire." Veidt laughed. "I like having you around. Would you like to stay the night?"  
  
A wary glance to the window.  
  
"Relax. I won't try anything inappropriate while you sleep." Adrian rolled his eyes. "I just... Want someone nearby. It reminds me I'm still living."  
  
And Rorshach didn't understand it, but he  _did_  know what it was like, on the nights when his shame and depression crept in, and he was so wired he felt like he was watching a different person. He knew dissociation first-hand, and wouldn't wish that on his friend, no matter how eccentric and blatantly  _homosexual_  he might be.  
  
"Alright." The man nodded. "I can stay."  
  
"I'm not gay, by the way," Adrian smirked then, relishing the shock he could sense off of Walter, even from behind the mask. "I'm bisexual. Like Alexander the Great."  
  
"... Of  _course_  you are." Rorschach let out a long suffering sigh, and they both moved away from the kitchen, into the night.


End file.
